


They Who Walk in Shadows

by President Romana (asoldandtrueasthesky)



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Agender Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 22:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12118476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asoldandtrueasthesky/pseuds/President%20Romana
Summary: Sulking alone in the Axis is one thing, running into alternate Universes with reckless abandon and no back up is quite another. (Un)Fortunately, an overzealous Chancellery Guard turns out to be the least of this Gallifrey’s problems.





	They Who Walk in Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shield of the Ages](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055932) by [JaneTurenne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne). 



 

Whatever this Gallifrey had done to get itself exiled from the main timeline, it couldn’t have been good. Romana had felt something wrong almost as soon as she’d entered the panopticon. The time vortex was too tangible, an almost visible presence when it was meant to be relegated to the attention of her subconsciousness. Illegal temporal experiments, no doubt.

Whatever this Gallifrey’s Romana had done to get arrested, it couldn’t have been good. The guards that had given chase the second they’d seen her face didn’t seem amenable to discussing a case of mistaken identity, they seemed more interested in bringing in a corpse.

The ground exploding behind her proved their stasers were on full power and she didn’t dare slow down, only a stumble away from being atomised. The chase was exhilarating in a way only Leela would have understood. It was the simplest of stories, reminiscent of her days with the Doctor, when they’d ran from daleks, the Black Guardian, the Time Lords, the consequences of their actions, and it’d felt like they’d never have to stop. There was no political intrigue or double meanings to deal with, just the simple promise of death if she stopped and freedom if she ran.

The heightened temporal awareness she’d noticed earlier flared up and a potential future slammed into her, all ashes and screaming and a burning bolt through her chest. She threw herself to the ground, just a split second before they discharged it and the shot that should have killed her instead hit the wall, blurring a seal of Rassilon beyond all recognition.

Romana scrambled to her feet, her chest still stinging with the knowledge of what had almost been, but slightly satisfied by her unintentional redecoration of the panopticon. She rounded a corner and half fell, half ran down a nondescript staircase that so few of her colleagues had ever seemed to notice, trusting that this Gallifrey’s past had diverged from the original’s recently enough that her knowledge of its secret paths would still be useful.

She’d expected to find the catacombs as she remembered them- a twisted maze of tunnels abandoned for so long they’d forgotten their original purpose, reverting to wildness, and treacherous to all that entered.

The differences weren’t immediately noticeable, but she soon became convinced the stone beneath her feet was new- it was too smooth and perfect to be the original- and though the tunnels were currently deserted, they didn’t feel untouched. She ran on, though the sounds of pursuit had long since faded into the distance, until exhaustion and the sight of a door that shouldn’t have been there pulled her to a stop.

Her hearts had only just stopped racing, the sudden drop in fear and thrill drawing attention to every bruise and ache she’d sustained. Since she still had all her limbs, both hearts, and a functioning respiratory bypass system, she ignored it in favour of fiddling with the door’s security system. Who could resist an anachronistic locked door?

It ran on a strange combination of biodata verification, retinal scans, and telepathy, technology far beyond anything else in the Old Capitol. The problem with a telepathic security system was it left the door open to psychic suggestion-if she could convince it she was someone who was meant to be there before it sounded an alarm or attacked her, she could fool it.

Romana pressed her temple to the scanner but instead of passively letting it check her mental patterns, she pushed back, imposing her own will on it. The lights above the door flashed red and a warning chiming sounded, like a TARDIS’s cloister bell, but Romana ignored it, clinging onto the thought that she was meant to be there, as stubbornly as if it was the truth. The door lit up green and swung open.

She walked in, finding a room newer than the tunnels that surrounded it. The floor, walls and ceiling were all white, a stark contrast to the faded colours of the old Capitol, too lost under rust and rubble to be named. It looked like a lab, though laboratories in the Capitol rarely required that much security, and were almost always situated in convenient places, lest their technicians and scientists refuse to exercise in order to reach them.

“If I were going to conduct illegal temporal experiments,” mused Romana, “I couldn’t pick a better spot.”

Something in the centre of the room caught her attention, pulling her unthinkingly towards it as if it were the centre of the Universe. What it was, she couldn’t quite make out- it was shadowy and blurred, and held in stasis, but sentience blazed around it like a crown.

It wanted to get out, it’s frustration burnt the air, but releasing it would be the height of foolishness. She’d _been_ the hero saving mad scientists or ingenues from their own curiosity, patiently helping them herd the monster or virus or zombie back into its cage, because she’d once opened Pandora’s box herself.

And yet, that knowledge did nothing to stop the sudden compulsion that had taken hold of her, her hands typing in a command before her conscious mind even had a chance to catch up.

There was a hiss of air as the invisible walls fell, revealing the creature it had been holding in a small bubble of time, a second stretched to breaking point. They sighed, the sound somehow simultaneously no more than a whisper and impossibly loud. “That’s better. I was getting bored, I’ve never been bored before.”

She could see the other more clearly now, the edges that had moments ago been blurred and indistinct, like their reality could change at any moment, had solidified and the sight of them burnt. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and the light of their eyes was so bright it was painful to look at, like they had dying stars in the place of pupils. Romana screwed her eyes shut and turned away.

“Would this shape be easier to look upon?” they asked, sounding genuinely curious. Their voice was soft like the wind whispering over silver leaves and hard like the start of a storm.

Romana risked opening her eyes and instantly regretted it. After travelling through so many alternate universes, seeing a living reflection of herself shouldn’t be a surprise, but all those other doubles had been different in some way. They’d held themselves differently or used different words or used silence like armour, some part of their past or their genome or the society that had borne them, making them someone else.

Instead, this was a perfect mirror, every part of her current appearance reflected back at her, from the dark circles under her eyes; to her golden-brown hair, unruly and unbrushed, allowed to grow out of the practical bob she’d had as President; to the faint bruises snaking their way up her wrists, small scars from her most recent brush with death.

The mirror image blinked back at her, something strange and unnatural lurking beneath the shape they wore, something ancient and _more_ than her, which was enough to bring back memories of the last time something sinister had worn her face and her body. She took a step back, gravitating towards the exit.

“Ah.” Said the not-Romana. “I can see how this resemblance might seem unfortunate.” There was a shift in the air and suddenly the mirror image was replaced by an imitation of Narvin, his CIA uniform as crisp and immaculate as the day they’d left their Gallifrey, but his face less well-defined, like it was blurred by imperfect memory. “This seems more appropriate.”

Romana froze, realising there was only one way they could have found Narvin’s face in order to steal it. “Have you been in my mind?” she demanded, indignation overtaking her unease. Even Pandora at her most insidious and subtle had been a noticeable presence, no matter how much she’d denied or ignored it.

“Was that impolite?”

Romana wanted to snap that borrowing faces without permission was the height of rudeness, but the moment their eyes met her knees got caught in a traitorous impulse to bend, to kneel at their feet and swear fealty. She swallowed it, with considerable difficulty, instead asking, “What are you?”

“You don’t _know_?” They smiled, the expression filled with amusement, with only a trace of condescension, and there was a patience in their tone she recognised from mothers talking to their children. “I’m Gallifrey.”

Half of her was ready to believe it before the words had even left their lips. The other was sceptical of the words of a lab experiment gone wrong, the same part of her that had refused Rassilon her throne, and Pandora, her body. Just because something felt ancient and wise and omniscient, it didn’t mean it knew any better. She frowned, chin raised, stubbornness etched in every well-earnt wrinkle. “Prove it.”

They _laughed_. Romana should have been offended, should have gathered up her imperiousness around her like the robe she no longer had, as if she still had the rod and sash and key and all the other things that gave her power in that Gallifrey and every other. She didn’t. All she had was her name and the memory of having a title, and of being a number, too used to living in extremes to deal with living in the middle.

“You always were too cynical for your own good,” they said, their tone chiding but tolerant, as they stretched out a hand. “Contact?”

Since they’d already demonstrated that they didn’t need consent, Romana took it. “Contact.”

Their mind was like nothing Romana had felt before. It was an amalgamation of history, of people, of every time the twin suns rose and fell, of the silence that had lasted an age, before anything on the planet had begun to think for itself. It was the present, the past, the future of Gallifrey all compressed into the shape of one exiled CIA agent. Though they seemed so close, their hand gripping hers, the distance between them was like the space between stars, and only the light of a supernova, bright and shining, would have been able to bridge it.

Romana stumbled back, drowning in memory and meaning.

“Romanadvoratrelundar.” They said, the name made into something wonderful on their tongue. “The child who left and got lost, but found her way home, in the end.”

Romana laughed, the sound high and near-hysterical, but a laugh all the same. It was the only appropriate reaction to realising that Gallifrey really had been rendered in humanoid form and it had chosen _Narvin_ as its face. After a few moments, she snapped back into seriousness, fixing her planet- the thing she’d worked so hard to save and failed anyway- with a grave stare. “This world’s CIA should never have made you.”

“No.” They agreed. “But this isn’t the main timeline, so it doesn’t matter much. You shouldn’t be here anymore than I.”

Romana stiffened. “I’m only trespassing because I have no place to go back to.”

“You belonged to me.” Said Gallifrey. “Another timeline, a slightly different planet, yes, but you belonged.”

“The main timeline is beyond saving.” Romana said, avoiding her eyes, as if the simple act of repeating it enough times would convince herself it was the truth. “Unless you know where we can find a cure, none of us are going back.”

“You gave up.” said Gallifrey. There was no judgement in their voice, only the echoes of so many histories, of so many other rulers that took the oath and broke it. “You’re on the brink of giving up again. Am I not worthy of your efforts? Have I wronged you by not being easy to fix?”

Romana bit back a denial. If it was clear to Leela, to Narvin, even, that she’d been trying to lose herself, she had little hope of hiding it from her own planet. “I never thought it’d be _easy_. I didn’t think I’d make things worse.”

“I didn’t call you home.” They said, the softness draining from their voice. All that was left was the emptiness of space, the angry heat of Gallifrey’s suns and the cool distance of its moons. “You could have stayed lost, if you’d wanted to. You chose to take the oath; will you betray it again?”

“I’m no President of yours.” Romana said, some part of her cringing away from the responsibility they were trying to place on her, trying to replace the crown that had been snatched from her head, when she’d been lucky it hadn’t been chopped off. “I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Some things are more important than artefacts and titles.” They said, disapproval clear in their tone, like it was a lesson she should have learnt long ago. “Why, then, did you come home at all?” 

“I thought I could make you into what I thought you were, when I was young and naïve.” She confessed, her voice low and hesitant, like she was admitting something shameful and foolish. “Bright and shining and best of all the worlds.”

Gallifrey raised an eyebrow and waited.

“And _mine_.” She added, some of her old ambition and arrogance rising up, like a phoenix from the ashes, and it burnt through her, hurting and healing in a way that her bitterness and fear never could have. 

“Dear child,” smiled Gallifrey, “why did you ever stop?”

Romana knelt at their feet, bowing her head. She didn’t make an oath, her old one still stood, and words seemed unnecessary between them. She glanced up to see the image of Narvin growing blurred, indistinct, and at times seeming to completely glitch out of reality. “Are you alright?”

“I’m unmaking myself.” said Gallifrey, matter-of-factly. “The Gallifreyans of this world didn’t give me corporeal form out of scientific curiosity. They think I can fix their problems and fight their wars. I hope I have helped yours somewhat, but that’s all I feel obliged to do.”

“You’re dying.” said Romana.

“If you like.”

“Aren’t you… sad?” she ventured. “You’ll never live like this again.”

Gallifrey laughed again and Romana couldn’t imagine ever being offended by it. “I have, will have, had, an eternity. You are not even my first children. I had your ancestors, before Rassilon made you all his descendants. I have pigrats and tafelshrews and pigbears and before all that I had the mountains and the trees and the grass. For all that you think you live forever, you end so frequently. Why should this ending be sadder than any of the others?”

“I suppose it isn’t.” Romana said, suddenly feeling rather small and insignificant. She wondered, distantly, if that was how Leela felt, being around people who viewed death as a minor inconvenience and her life as so short and fleeting that it might as well already be history. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

 

*

 

The Axis was the same as ever, an unwelcoming shade of white, its dimensions shifting every time she looked away, the very definition of a liminal space.

Leela ran to her, while Narvin hovered nearby, trying not to look like he’d been waiting just as anxiously. “You should not have gone without us, Romana! If you had gotten into a fight, you’d have lost and deserved it.”

Romana sighed. “I’ve just had my character flaws and political failings pointed out to me by my own planet, please don’t further poke at my ego.”

Narvin and Leela shared a baffled look.

“By a planet?” ventured Narvin.

“Yes, and I’m not explaining it now.” Not least because if Narvin got that idea in his head, if he ever ended up Coordinator of the CIA again, she wasn’t completely sure he’d resist the temptation to repeat the experiment. “But it turns out Gallifrey looks a lot like you.”

Leela turned to Narvin. “What does she mean? None of her words make sense.”

He scowled. “How am I supposed to know?”

“You are both Time Lords.” Leela said, with the air of someone explaining something completely obvious to a small child.

“The resemblance ends there.”

“I’m still here, you know.” said Romana, as she walked to the spot they’d been using as a place to sleep for the past few days, exhaustion finally catching up with her. “My words make perfect sense.”

Leela joined her, still dubious, but was soon asleep by her side. Romana had always envied her ability to find peace so easily, while her own mind stirred thoughts around until they became a storm.

“Narvin.” She whispered. He looked up, not bothering to feign sleep. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“By abandoning our Gallifrey and searching for a new one,” she said, ignoring his flinch at her words, “instead of rebuilding the ruins of the old one.”

He frowned, sitting up, his gaze almost accusatory. “You don’t believe in your plan anymore?” 

“It was never my plan. It was always Brax’s, and he’s… not coming back.” She said, surprised by his reaction. She added, a tad defensively, “You were never its greatest fan.”

“No, but I’ve been following— “he broke off, annoyance clear in his tone. “What do you want us to do?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Of course you don’t.” he muttered. He rose and bowed, all distant politeness, when she’d felt on the verge of understanding him just spans ago. “My lady.” He said, and left, presumably to brood alone in some distant, emptier part of the Axis.

Romana frowned, unsure of what had just happened. Narvin had looked at her like she’d betrayed him, like she’d broken some promise she couldn’t remember making, and she still had no idea what it was.

She closed her eyes, surrendering to the starless night, Leela a small comfort beside her. She’d fix whatever Gallifrey they ended up in, whether it was the one that had borne them or one of its twisted mirrors. Maybe after that, she could tackle the problem of other people, and the all too little sense they made.

 


End file.
